HAPPY 2 nd BIRTHDAY BENJAMIN!

Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you, Happy Birthday to Benjamin, Happy Birthday tooooooooooo yoooooooooooooooooou! Benjamin is our nephew and he is turning 2 today! He is such a sweet boy and as you can see, he is cute as ever. We don't see him very often because he lives in Arizona but we wanted him to know we are thinking about him on his special day! We love you buddy!


Aydon and Benjamin riding Toby at the Farm.

Scratch the last post!

So we took Jake to the Doctor today and he has a ear infection a viral infection and he just cut his 2 eye teeth. Needless to say the poor child is miserable and we are not leaving until some time next week or atleast until my little guy is feeling better. So I guess I have more time to pack and organize than I thought.......

On the road again!

Well we are hopefully hitting the road tomorrow. I say hopefully because Jake ran a fever last night and today. We have a Dr.'s appt today and if he is alright then we will leave first thing in the morning. If not then I guess we will be here a little bit longer. My Mom and Grandma driving with me. I have no idea what I would do without them. I wish I would have had more time to say goodbye to everyone. But we will be back soon to pick up the rest of our stuff. We will miss everyone here so much. Thanks to blogging we won't lose touch. We will be back often to see family and friends. We will keep you posted as soon as we get there.

Swimming at Grandma's House

We had a great time swimming at Great Grandma's House today! I told the kids if they got all of their chores done early this morning that we would spend the rest of the day swimming. I am not against bribing my children and it works like a charm. My house is clean and the kids didn't complain once. We had a great time we brought lunch with us and then swam for 4 hours. So the best part of this is that all of my little munchkins are exhausted and taking naps and I have a moment to myself, ahhhhh!


So Miss Lindsey did great today! She has always loved the water up until a couple of weeks ago when she jumped in the pool without her floaties. She sunk! I was right there but she still was terrified. So we have spent the past couple of weeks getting her comfortable in the water again.

Jakey was in and out, and in and out! I was chasing that child all over. He has NO FEAR! He would jump to Aydon and I, even when we weren't looking! Then he would get out for a while and explore the pool grounds as curious toddlers do. Then stop to play with Grandma and eat and eat and eat! Little Porker!

Lindsey sat on the steps for a little while to get used to the water. She and Jake would throw the water rings for Aydon and Lauren to go get.

We finally made some progress! She would jump in and kick to me as long as I stayed close. And then she was off on her own. She would "swim" all over and get mad if you tried to help her. I was so proud of her.


Lindsey kept telling Lauren that she would save her and teach her how to swim as good as her. She and Lauren are both sugar and spice. I have no idea where they got that from!

Aydon was trying to stand up on his kick board. That thing went flying!

I had to put this one in because it so cute! I want to eat her! She was telling me to sing her the Little Mermaid song because she felt like Ariel in the water.

Aydon and Lauren would dive for rings all day if I let them. Who would of thought a plastic cirlce could entertain kids for hours!

Lauren is a great swimmer and such a good helper to me with the little ones.

The bigger kids were playing motor boat with the little ones. I love to hear them giggle when they speed up.

How perfectly Lindsey!

It was a little cold at first but it didn't take him long to jump in.

Aydon was trying to pick everyone up including me, he said he likes how strong he becomes in the water. He and Lauren played so well with not a sinlge tiff and life is bliss when that happens. I have to take a picture.

A fun weekend with Daddy!

This is kind of a part 2 for Danny so bare with me. Danny came home for the weekend and from the moment he got in the car everyone was so happy. He has never been away for that long before and the kids I were definately having withdrawls. He was the kids human jungle gym from the first day to the last and barely got a break, although he was not complaining. One or all of us were hanging on him the entire time. I absolutely enjoyed every second of him being home. These past few weeks have given me a chance to think about families who have to spend alot of time apart either for work or what ever the circumstances are and I have no clue how they do it. I missed Danny so much and felt kind of lost with out him. Obviously I had the kids to keep me company and very busy as four kids do, but I was honestly lonely with out him. He left again on Monday night and will probably be gone for another 2 weeks so we are in the same boat again. Before Danny left he wrote a little note to each of the kids and I, and left on the table for us to find when we got home from the airport. (He is great at letters, always knowing exactly what to say!) As I was reading Lindsey's to her I got a little emotional, so she climbed up on my lap and hugged me and said "It's ok Mom, Daddy will be home soon." That really made everything better for me. She is such a sweet heart. Aydon and Lauren have carried their letters around ever since and counting down the days. We really can't wait to be together again and not have to worry about him going back and forth.

Anyhow, here are some pictures of our weekend...

Jake is always trying to get his daiper off, so I had to get a picture of his bum!

We were watching a movie and Lindsey put on several pairs of Danny's socks and danced around for us. She is having a "Flash Dance" moment with her leg warmers.

We went to sonic and got some ice cream. Aydon apparently didn't get the memo that it was happy hour!
However....Lauren did! She is always happy when ice cream is involved, plus she loves to watch the girls skate over to our car to deliver our food. She says she wants to work at sonic some day so she can skate around. Hopefully she got Danny's cordination skills, because I would bite it!

We are sure going to miss the wild life preserve behind our house. We love to go walking back there with the kids.